IBM acquires Cognos for $5bn

IBM has acquired Ottawa-based Cognos for approximately $5 billion in an all
cash deal.

IBM plans to integrate Cognos as a group within IBM's Information Management
Software division, focused on business intelligence and performance management.
Rob Ashe, President and CEO, Cognos will lead the group, reporting directly to
Ambuj Goyal, GM, Cognos.

“This is an exciting combination for our customers, partners, and employees.
It provides us with the ability to expand our vision as the leading BI and
Performance Management provider,” said Ashe.

The acquisition accelerates IBM's global information on demand initiative, a
cross-company initiative announced last year that combines IBM's strength in
information integration, content and data management and business consulting
services to unlock the business value of information.

IBM said the acquisition fits squarely within both its acquisition strategy
and capital allocation model, and that it will contribute to the achievement of
the company's objective for earnings-per-share growth through 2010.

Cognos provides the only complete Business Intelligence (BI) and performance
management platform, fully integrated on an open-standards-based service
oriented architecture (SOA), and has a strong history of supporting
heterogeneous applica-tion environments.

Cognos will also extend IBM's reach further into the CFO office with powerful
financial planning and consolidation capabilities.

The acquisition is expected to close in the first quarter of 2008.

“We chose Cognos because of its industry-leading technology that is based on
open standards, which complements IBM's Service Oriented Architecture strategy,”
said Steve Mills, Senior VP and Group Executive, IBM Software Group.

Cognos has approximately 4,000 em-ployees worldwide and serves more than
25,000 customers. IBM and Cognos have partnered for more than 15 years, with
extensive technical integrations and eight pre-integrated joint solutions.